I ve seen a few videos and what really pissed me off was the total lack of character customization.Not only that but i think at beginning we take one out of a few  pre-fixed named toons! Is it so? Zero customization?

It is not so, you can get items called "costume items" which change your character's appearance. You can select any name you want, and weapons look different but its usually only a subtle difference at least at low levels. But fear not there is some level of customization.

Originally posted by hazy

It is not so, you can get items called "costume items" which change your character's appearance. You can select any name you want, and weapons look different but its usually only a subtle difference at least at low levels. But fear not there is some level of customization.

 Explain further

The costune items are cash items though. if you have no cash then you have no customization.

You guys ever played Perfect World games? Asion F2P = cash shop ALWAYS. Save your money and play something like SWTOR or GW2.

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Originally posted by reanor
You guys ever played Perfect World games? Asion F2P = cash shop ALWAYS.

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Every F2P game has cash shop. It's nothing unusual. How can F2P developers earn money in other way? Is just depend, what items will be available in cash shop and how much those items will have impact in game play. Customization items are best for cash shop - they are not required to play at all, have no impact in gameplay (unless cash shop gear has embedded stats, than is another story - playing players gain unfair advantage) but if you have money, you may want to buy them to make your characters looking unique.

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Save your money and play something like SWTOR or GW2.

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SWTOR = P2P (as i checked now, i'm was not really interested in this title), so may not have cash shop, but as subscription based - without money you cannot play at all.
GW2 = B2P, also requires money to start playing (and will have cash shop).
Those are just another league. Not all can spend money to play, not all want to spend money on game before can try game.

Right, and I'd rather pay P2P game from a well know developer of RPGs that made quite a few outstanding RPGs before and their MMO is one of a kind too than paying real money for almost every single item I want in Perfect World games.

I am playing Rusty Hearts right now.. and I won a costume ticket from a dungeon (mystery chest). This means I can get the armorer to make my costume... so no cash shop needed unless your unlucky or just lazy.

With PWE you don't ever need to use their cash shop, it is there for people with no patience from what I have seen.

It's not about lazy or not patient (well, this maybe a little). Just there are players, who have work or other important activities taking their time which severely limits time, that can be spend on game. So they just spend money to buy some needed items from cash shop (if available there) or sell cash shop items to other players, gaining game money.

On the other side, there are players, who don't have money/don't want spend money on games, but have lots of time. So spend time in game, mostly grinding, and earn game money/items, which can be traded for needed cash shop items.

If good F2P game, both of those group should be possible to be equally equipped (stats and look), after spending comparable money (first group) or time (second group). Which means there are no non-tradeable/non-giftable cash items, but also there are no non-tradeable epic gear, not possible to obtain unless spending days/weeks on grinding. I know some games which fails badly in those aspects, but RH looks OK.

There's teddy bear costumes which you can probably farm up enough of the fabric  from re-doing dungeons whenever a dead mans chest appears on top of getting the recepie from an easy quest to use an example.

You also get a lot of costume pieces just from leveling and doing quests, but to be honest everyone just equips every piece they get from quests making them look like clones depending on their level, heh.

Weapons can look a lot different, even without lots of enchanting them for glow effects or anything also.

Heck, you can buy a lot of cash shop costumes from the auction house for reasonable prices.  With pieces like neck slot items being very cheap.

It's really not as bad as it seems.